1. Describe the stasis in the play: where, when, who, what, etc. in a paragraph. The stasis of The Queen’s Garden takes place in Brenda’s father’s pharmacy, Dave’s Pharmacy, in Hawaii in 1966. The characters involved include Brenda, her mother, her father, her two sisters Laura and Donna, her little brother, and two “chatterboxes,” Theresa and Lisa, and the baby, Sas, as well as Auntie Mary. The play begins with everyone in Dave’s Pharmacy. Brenda however, ends up with Auntie Mary watching a boating race, and it is there that she meets Kali. 2. What is the intrusion? The intrusion of the play is Long Beach Polytechnic High. When Brenda, Kali, and Smoke go across the highway to the school, they are separated and Brenda is put in a gifted class whereas her boyfriend Kali is put in “Twelve o’clock High,” where they put the students who are believed to need more attention. It is also at the high school that Brenda meets Steve and Sherri and is sort of introduced to more than she is used to.
3. What is the unique factor? The unique factor of the play is that the narrator of the play is Brenda Wong Aoki, and it is the day she acts as a narrator to tell the audience about her story. This is the day she illuminates her past that gave way to the present.
4. What is the dramatic question that should be answered by the end of the play? The main dramatic question that must be answered by the end of the play is, “What happens to Brenda?” Other questions that are also answered by the end of the play include what happens to other characters, but Brenda is the main character of the plot and the play revolves around the things that happened in her past. Altogether, by the end of the play the audience may want to know what happened to her as well as how it affected her.
5. Provide an illustration of the two kinds of exposition that the play has in it. The first exposition of the plot takes place with Brenda only. She comes to realize that the “Westside,” wasn’t such the paradise she saw as a child. She describes that she realized the bridge was a freeway overpass, the glowing, pink sunsets was smog, and so on. Brenda finally gets to go to the other side of town when she meets Steve and Sherry at High School and begins to change from the “Westside,” way. In this exposition, Brenda learns that she wants more. In the second exposition, in which it happens on the outer level, Brenda goes to college while Sherry stays with Smoke in Westside because they’re having a child. Kali also stays in the Westside, but gets in trouble with the law when Smoke gives him to the police. Throughout the exposition, the play is illuminating just how much things changed between the four of them. Sherry becomes what Brenda was afraid of becoming, and Kali and Brenda’s roads end up splitting off.
6. Identify the most theatrical moment in the play and of what importance it seems to be. The most theatrical moment of the play takes place in the end when Brenda is trying to diffuse the situation between Kali and his friend turned enemy, Smoke. She finds him in Auntie Mary’s house and asks him the same question he asked her when they met. He is about to go with her when Smoke shoots up the house. Auntie Mary, Sherry and Smoke’s son Dreamer, and Kali all die. Smoke is said to have disappeared and Brenda went back to San Francisco. She then tells the audience in a somber tone that the Westside is still with her, pointing to her chest. In her last words she speaks about Auntie Mary, about her being a queen and her rose garden, still beautiful even after being overgrown with weeds. The part is almost symbolic as she describes the place to have a few roses bloom every still each year.
7. List some of the themes of the play. The themes of this play include change and acceptance. Change is a theme in “The Queen’s Garden,” because of the fact that Brenda’s world does in fact change. From the beginning, the beauty she saw in the Westside faded she grew up and realized it belonged to smog, flood control, and a highway overpass. Change can be seen when she decides she wants to go to college even if Kali does not. It can be illustrated when she and Sherry share a moment in the car outside of Auntie Mary’s house, in which Sherry describes becoming the “fat mama,” and Brenda describes herself as becoming the “cold expletive from ‘Frisco.” Acceptance can also be seen in the play because Brenda has to accept that things are different. She learns how to do this when Kali comes back and she finally announces that things will not work between them after Kali gets too drunk at a cocktail party. She also accepts how things have changed when she decides to go back to San Francisco after Kali is killed by Smoke, but believes that the Westside is still with her.
8. What do the narrator want and what are some obstacles that stand in the way of her getting what she wants? The narrator of the play faces obstacles pertaining mainly to a ‘me against myself,’ and a ‘me against another individual,’ conflict. The “me against myself,” conflict arises from the fact that she realizes what she wants when she goes to high school. She wants to go to college, however, when she did she felt bad for leaving her family and friends behind. The narrator felt guilty for getting out of the Westside while everyone she knows is still there. This might be part of the reason she let Kali back into her life after all those years. Of course a part of her still loved him, but it may also have to do with the guilt she felt for leaving him to go to school. When it comes to the “me against another individual,” conflict, the narrator faces it with her boyfriend Kali when he doesn’t want her to go to college, or with her family when they too are a little saddened by her leaving. She even faces a conflict with Hai, her roommate when she leaves the Westside, when she wants to get back together with Kali and does not reciprocate Hai’s feelings towards her as well as agree with the idea that she is going to end up like Sherry if they reconcile. She faces two conflicts with Smoke, one originating from when they were children and Smoke was jealous of Kali spending so much time with her instead of him, and the other when they are much older and Smoke is angry at Kali for turning him over to police as well.
9. Describe some possible images in the play and how does the title help us understand the play. Images in the play include the rose garden, Kali, and Sherry. The rose garden acts as an image because it symbolizes the beauty of the Westside as well as Brenda’s past life. The rose garden was still beautiful after Brenda realized that the Westside had smog pollution, the beautiful bridge was a highway overpass, and the water was from flood control. However, when Smoke’s son Dreamer killed Auntie Mary, Kali died, and Smoke disappeared, the garden’s life diminished. The Westside was now in the past for Brenda. Kali and Sherry are both images because Kali on the outside is a simple boyfriend, but what the audience doesn’t see is the idea that Kali represents something Brenda had to let go of to get on with her life. He was an anchor. Sherry on the outside was someone from the “other side of the tracks,” that became a friend to Brenda, but on the inside she represents the thing Brenda never wanted to become.
10. Briefly define the family relationships that are examined in the play. The family relationships in the play are very closely tied. There is the relationship Brenda has with her blood family that is briefly strained when she leaves for college, the relationship she had with her boyfriend Kali, and the relationship she had with her friend, Sherry as well as Auntie Mary. These relationships in the play were made and long lasting, even through the problems that Brenda faced with them. Except for Auntie Mary, Brenda’s relationships with these people are tested, resulting in the loss of the weight that they once held. Family in this play exhibits the problems that can be created within one.
1. Describe the stasis in the play: where, when, who, what, etc. in a paragraph.
The stasis of The Queen’s Garden takes place in Brenda’s father’s pharmacy, Dave’s Pharmacy, in Hawaii in 1966. The characters involved include Brenda, her mother, her father, her two sisters Laura and Donna, her little brother, and two “chatterboxes,” Theresa and Lisa, and the baby, Sas, as well as Auntie Mary. The play begins with everyone in Dave’s Pharmacy. Brenda however, ends up with Auntie Mary watching a boating race, and it is there that she meets Kali.
2. What is the intrusion?
The intrusion of the play is Long Beach Polytechnic High. When Brenda, Kali, and Smoke go across the highway to the school, they are separated and Brenda is put in a gifted class whereas her boyfriend Kali is put in “Twelve o’clock High,” where they put the students who are believed to need more attention. It is also at the high school that Brenda meets Steve and Sherri and is sort of introduced to more than she is used to.
3. What is the unique factor?
The unique factor of the play is that the narrator of the play is Brenda Wong Aoki, and it is the day she acts as a narrator to tell the audience about her story. This is the day she illuminates her past that gave way to the present.
4. What is the dramatic question that should be answered by the end of the play?
The main dramatic question that must be answered by the end of the play is, “What happens to Brenda?” Other questions that are also answered by the end of the play include what happens to other characters, but Brenda is the main character of the plot and the play revolves around the things that happened in her past. Altogether, by the end of the play the audience may want to know what happened to her as well as how it affected her.
5. Provide an illustration of the two kinds of exposition that the play has in it.
The first exposition of the plot takes place with Brenda only. She comes to realize that the “Westside,” wasn’t such the paradise she saw as a child. She describes that she realized the bridge was a freeway overpass, the glowing, pink sunsets was smog, and so on. Brenda finally gets to go to the other side of town when she meets Steve and Sherry at High School and begins to change from the “Westside,” way. In this exposition, Brenda learns that she wants more. In the second exposition, in which it happens on the outer level, Brenda goes to college while Sherry stays with Smoke in Westside because they’re having a child. Kali also stays in the Westside, but gets in trouble with the law when Smoke gives him to the police. Throughout the exposition, the play is illuminating just how much things changed between the four of them. Sherry becomes what Brenda was afraid of becoming, and Kali and Brenda’s roads end up splitting off.
6. Identify the most theatrical moment in the play and of what importance it seems to be.
The most theatrical moment of the play takes place in the end when Brenda is trying to diffuse the situation between Kali and his friend turned enemy, Smoke. She finds him in Auntie Mary’s house and asks him the same question he asked her when they met. He is about to go with her when Smoke shoots up the house. Auntie Mary, Sherry and Smoke’s son Dreamer, and Kali all die. Smoke is said to have disappeared and Brenda went back to San Francisco. She then tells the audience in a somber tone that the Westside is still with her, pointing to her chest. In her last words she speaks about Auntie Mary, about her being a queen and her rose garden, still beautiful even after being overgrown with weeds. The part is almost symbolic as she describes the place to have a few roses bloom every still each year.
7. List some of the themes of the play.
The themes of this play include change and acceptance. Change is a theme in “The Queen’s Garden,” because of the fact that Brenda’s world does in fact change. From the beginning, the beauty she saw in the Westside faded she grew up and realized it belonged to smog, flood control, and a highway overpass. Change can be seen when she decides she wants to go to college even if Kali does not. It can be illustrated when she and Sherry share a moment in the car outside of Auntie Mary’s house, in which Sherry describes becoming the “fat mama,” and Brenda describes herself as becoming the “cold expletive from ‘Frisco.” Acceptance can also be seen in the play because Brenda has to accept that things are different. She learns how to do this when Kali comes back and she finally announces that things will not work between them after Kali gets too drunk at a cocktail party. She also accepts how things have changed when she decides to go back to San Francisco after Kali is killed by Smoke, but believes that the Westside is still with her.
8. What do the narrator want and what are some obstacles that stand in the way of her getting what she wants?
The narrator of the play faces obstacles pertaining mainly to a ‘me against myself,’ and a ‘me against another individual,’ conflict. The “me against myself,” conflict arises from the fact that she realizes what she wants when she goes to high school. She wants to go to college, however, when she did she felt bad for leaving her family and friends behind. The narrator felt guilty for getting out of the Westside while everyone she knows is still there. This might be part of the reason she let Kali back into her life after all those years. Of course a part of her still loved him, but it may also have to do with the guilt she felt for leaving him to go to school. When it comes to the “me against another individual,” conflict, the narrator faces it with her boyfriend Kali when he doesn’t want her to go to college, or with her family when they too are a little saddened by her leaving. She even faces a conflict with Hai, her roommate when she leaves the Westside, when she wants to get back together with Kali and does not reciprocate Hai’s feelings towards her as well as agree with the idea that she is going to end up like Sherry if they reconcile. She faces two conflicts with Smoke, one originating from when they were children and Smoke was jealous of Kali spending so much time with her instead of him, and the other when they are much older and Smoke is angry at Kali for turning him over to police as well.
9. Describe some possible images in the play and how does the title help us understand the play.
Images in the play include the rose garden, Kali, and Sherry. The rose garden acts as an image because it symbolizes the beauty of the Westside as well as Brenda’s past life. The rose garden was still beautiful after Brenda realized that the Westside had smog pollution, the beautiful bridge was a highway overpass, and the water was from flood control. However, when Smoke’s son Dreamer killed Auntie Mary, Kali died, and Smoke disappeared, the garden’s life diminished. The Westside was now in the past for Brenda. Kali and Sherry are both images because Kali on the outside is a simple boyfriend, but what the audience doesn’t see is the idea that Kali represents something Brenda had to let go of to get on with her life. He was an anchor. Sherry on the outside was someone from the “other side of the tracks,” that became a friend to Brenda, but on the inside she represents the thing Brenda never wanted to become.
10. Briefly define the family relationships that are examined in the play.
The family relationships in the play are very closely tied. There is the relationship Brenda has with her blood family that is briefly strained when she leaves for college, the relationship she had with her boyfriend Kali, and the relationship she had with her friend, Sherry as well as Auntie Mary. These relationships in the play were made and long lasting, even through the problems that Brenda faced with them. Except for Auntie Mary, Brenda’s relationships with these people are tested, resulting in the loss of the weight that they once held. Family in this play exhibits the problems that can be created within one.